


Absence of answer

by EvilMuffins



Category: Dangan Ronpa, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-25
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-15 09:49:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16060595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilMuffins/pseuds/EvilMuffins
Summary: “Well, duh, Saihara-chan!” Ouma explained to the dangling statue of Amami, the real deal dead and gone, bloodied corpse dragged off to who knows where. “I fell in love with you because you’re oh so trustworthy, Mr. Detective!”He wanted to gag. Was that really it? Was he really that fucking shallow?----Ouma is posed with a question.





	Absence of answer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MikoGalatea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MikoGalatea/gifts).



A golden copper, like five yen coins, round and wide, a pair of eyes belonging to Saihara Shuuichi stared up at him.

“ _Why?”_

A simple question, one comprised of a single word, yet one that Ouma quickly found he had no answer to. For once, his tongue held no lie ready at the gate, pawing to burst forth, leaving the detective’s wits in the dust.

“Why me?” Saihara asked again, not as an expression of clichéd self-pity, but as a direct question, non-rhetorical, leaving the small amount of space between them ringing heavy with the absence of answer.

“ _I love you, Saihara-chan!”_ Ouma’s words from just moments earlier weren’t anything he hadn’t said aloud before, although pinning Saihara down on the floor of his lab while saying them was certainly something new.

The evil leader had spooked him, barging into his lab unannounced, causing him to drop one of the vials of poison, both watching as it rolled beneath the desk. Crawling around on the floor where he couldn’t keep an eye on Ouma had been mistake -for the both of them- Ouma thought in retrospect.

Saihara’s eyes continued to burn in Ouma’s throat as if he had swallowed the content of the vial still clutched in the detective’s hand. Choked, the invisible hand of the unknown wrapping round his thin neck.

_I don’t know._

_I don’t know!_

“I left…the stove on! In the kitchen!” he cracked a grin, scuttling off of Saihara like a crab attacked by a gull. “Without Toujou-chan around anymore, we all have to start taking care of ourselves, so you can just pick your own sorry ass up off the floor. Bye now!”

Ouma was back in his room before he even realised where his feet were taking him.

The white board loomed, just as he had left it before coming to Saihara’s lab. They were the same in that regard, two boys both hating to leave a puzzle unfinished.

Amami Rantarou, murdered by Akamatsu Kaede.

Hoshi Ryouma, drown at the hands of Toujou Kirumi.

Yonaga Angie, Chabashira Tenko, a double murder thanks to Shinguuji.

Saihara Shuuichi… _Trustworthy…?_

Ouma snorted, flopping backward onto the rumpled sheets, not caring in the least that the pointed ear of a rubber horsehead jabbed into his lower spine.

“Well, duh, Saihara-chan!” Ouma explained to the dangling statue of Amami, the real deal dead and gone, bloodied corpse dragged off to who knows where. “I fell in love with you because you’re _oh so_ trustworthy, Mr. Detective!”

He wanted to gag. Was that really _it_? Was he really that fucking shallow?

He shouldn’t have panicked, shouldn’t have ran. His lips could lie all he wanted, but he knew that his actions betrayed the truth. And now Saihara _knew_ that he didn’t have a damn good reason for feeling the way that he did about him.

The one thing that wasn’t a lie, and he had no proof to back it up.

* * *

 

“You’re back,” Saihara stated simply, looking up from a book spread open on his desk. Closing it gently, without so much as a snap, he stood, rounding the desk.

Undivided attention.

Ouma fought the urge to flee right back to the dorm once again. He should be there, sorting out the puzzle, piece by piece, stacking them up, a ladder reaching toward the truth.

What was he hoping to accomplish here, with someone he had only just met?

Saihara cleared his throat. Had he been expecting some sort of snappy reply? Cute. “Before… I forgot to ask you how your hand’s been doing…”

“Nishishishi~” Ouma giggled, “You didn’t seem all too worried about it before, when these hands had you pinned to the ground!”

“Er…”

 _Very_ cute.

Ouma continued, “Besides, it was only a finger.” He wriggled all ten in demonstration, despite the sting in just the one. “I still have nine others!”

“That’s good, I guess…” At times when he spoke, Saihara’s face seemed so different from that of the photo tacked up in his room. The expressions he made, the flush in his cheeks, the way the light would catch in his eyes.

A living person, one who spared time for Ouma, patient, attempting to lift the mask so carefully built, layer upon layer.

Saihara took a step closer, shaking his head as if he had been told a joke he just didn’t quite get. “I still don’t know why you would have done that-“

“What?” Ouma tilted his head. “Bleed all over the place?”

“No,” Saihara said, gently taking Ouma’s injured hand in his own once again as to inspect it, touch so light that it could hardly be felt, save for the electric hum Ouma swore he felt run up his spine. “You know what I’m talking about.” The stern tone his voice had taken in stark contrast with the feel of his skin, long fingers wrapped round Ouma’s. “You know what I mean. Ouma-kun… I just, I want to understand you better.”

_Oh._

Well, there was one answer.

 

 


End file.
